Posted
by
timothy
on Saturday September 27, 2008 @05:40PM
from the to-the-degree-that-patents-are-good dept.

SoulMaster writes "The company I work for (we are a one-year-old start-up) has recently started filing patents to protect some of its intellectual property. At the onset of the patent process, one of the executives drafted a very basic Patent Incentive Program (PIP) which is now under full review to ensure that it is both accurate and fair. The basics of our original PIP are that inventors receive (or co-inventors share): $500 for each provisional filing, $1500 for an actual patent filing (with full claim-sets defined), and $5000 for any patent that is granted by the USPTO. While the current program seems fair to our staff, we have been unable to find anything to compare it to. Moreover, the revamp of the program is likely to grant an equity stake in the company (via an Options grant) rather than cash payouts. I've scoured Google for information, but because internally documented PIPs aren't generally public knowledge, the results are limited. Thus, I have decided to ask Slashdot users: How does the company you work for handle Patent incentives? Do they have them at all? Are they cash or equity based?"

That is a good patent policy for a university, but I don't see how it could work for a company. For example, at Stanford (and most other universities), the inventors have the right to place inventions in the public domain. I don't see how ANY company could let individual employees make that important a decision on what is potentially a core technology for their business.

Universities almost never want to implement the IP themselves - instead they are searching for licensees that will take the invention and m

It would be nice if there was a "-1, irrelevant" downmoderation possible for responses like this.

The poster didn't ask "should I help in filing patents?" or "what are the ethical questions involved in patents?" -- you're response is roughly as helpful as offering a good recipe for barbecue (ie, potentially interesting but ultimately irrelevant).

While I generally agree with you that patents are nearly useless and certainly don't perform the task that they are designed to encourage (aka... promote the development of useful ideas), the issue here is:

If an employer decides to give you some sort of compensation for developing patentable ideas, how much should you be getting for that idea?

Not everybody views the patent system to be as corrupt as you do. Even if it may be broken and a horrible idea on the whole, it is the way business is done today... a

This is incorrect, to my knowledge. Universities and other institutions engaged in what is essentially publicly funded research do not keep control of the patents that result from research: rather it's the individual researchers themselves who retain control of such patents.

What do you suppose they do with those patents? They start an outside company not affiliated with the university to capitalize on the patent(s) and reap personal profit from it. The university basically doesn't get - or isn't legally entitled to - a dime of that profit. This has been happening for decades.

Frankly, such patentable innovations discovered by virtue of public funding should be registered to The Public Domain (or Public Trust), rather than to individual researchers or even universities. If it's bragging rights they want, they can still proclaim their involvement. If public resources, taxes or the equivalent, made the research possible in the first place, though, then no individual person or institution should be able to claim any exclusive legal ownership of that little piece of knowledge.

(Frankly no one should be able to claim exclusive legal ownership of any bit of knowledge, IMO, but I'm throwing the dissenters a bone here.)

The problem is that there should not be a patent at all. Because patents are just slack for the economy as every economist will tell you. The only leftover the free trade revolution failed to kill in the last century.

Patents for software are in particular dangerous. [stopsoftwarepatents.org]

The fact with patents is that registering a patent is like registering a trade mark. Hire more patent attorneys and you get more patents. And no one asks whether they will produce any return on investment.

An innovative company will bail the lawyers out, invest in real R&D and lobby for patent reform to overcome the madness. Research institutions should not patent at all.

I do not see why your post was moderated flamebait, it seems perfectly well reasoned.

Give a cash bonus plus stock, but make sure you have some sort of review process to make sure the patents being filed are not clearly derivative or otherwise not likely to be granted a patent.

The cash bonus gives people an immediate reward for their work. The stock bonus gives people a sense that they are working on something that will benefit them, and not just their employer, over the long term. The review board keeps people from abusing the system by flooding you with patent applications that are highly unlikely to be accepted.

Just remember, if you make the rewards too small, no one will take the program seriously and no one will put forth any real effort to invent patentable stuff.

The review board keeps people from abusing the system by flooding you with patent applications that are highly unlikely to be accepted.

The way to help prevent abuse is to only give incentives for patents that are granted. A cash incentive can be given as soon as the application is approved, then stocks or stock options can be issues periodically. Say if it's 100 stocks after a year 25 stocks are given, after 2 years another 25 stocks are given, and so on. That way if a patent is contested after approval while the person will get something, the employer doesn't have to pay it all out.

The problem with that approach is that the potential payoff is too far into the future to be a real motivating factor. Patents take about 3 years to get through the system and be accepted. Especially for young startups, you can't even rely on the company still being around after that time, never mind being able to honor a long-term commitment after a merger or takeover.

A good policy thus provides a small immediate payoff, combined with a more substantial long-term benefit. As the GP suggests, you of course

If your employer is, or has plans to be, a publicly traded company, I'd suggest talking to transactional attorney before setting up a program involving stock options. IIRC the federal securities laws have some fairly strict provisions as to which employees may be granted stock options, along with pricing issues, holding periods and other arcane issues.

At our company, all patent disclosures are reviewed by other technical experts to determine their suitability to file. After all, it isn't free to file patents. Thus, there's a scale: Small bonus for decision to file to encourage disclosures, larger bonus for the patent issuing, and a variable bonus some years later on review as I talk about here [slashdot.org].

The technical guy isn't the one that would be flooding the patent office with bogus disclosures in an attempt to write himself an endless stream of bonus checks

Then, the employee feels they are being treated a bit more fairly as apposed to some little bonus. And why not? If a company makes millions of dollars off of an employees creativity why shouldn't they partake.

Where I work, we do regular reviews of our issued patents to determine which were valuable and which were not. The valuable ones win the inventors an incentive award. And, since it's a company full of engineers, yes, we do have fancy schmancy formulas that drive the process, and determine the amount

Additionally, certain patent acquirement strategies significantly increasethe risk of being the target of patent lawsuits [m-cam.com], because they paint a bullseye on your company's strategic development, enabling patent trolls to predict it, patent "alongside" your development and sue you based on that.

And then there's still this whole patent bubble [huffingtonpost.com] that's still forming, fairly similar to how the whole credit crisis came to be. In time, the value of patents is going to come crashing down just as spectacularly, regardless of how many times you repeat the holy yet hollow mantra "but our intellectual property must be protected!"

"the fact remains that patents are what drives most research and technological progress in the world"

Which shows that you have no clue about the economic research on the patent system.

Sure, statistic research which measures 'innovation' of a nation by the number of patents granted (or "applied for" as we don't have good data on granting, it takes 4-5 years to examine a patent) will find that more patents mean more innovation but the fact is that the patent system is based on economic voodoo. It is a belief system with the assumption that you can create property.

As it is an incentive system we don't know if an economy is better off with a patent system than without. Therefore a patent system is not "justified". At least in the field of software and business methods and other service sectors the system is very damaging [stopsoftwarepatents.org] as it was not made for these markets.

It is a belief system with the assumption that you can create property.

And what makes you think you can't? That's what manufacturing is about, you know, creating property and selling it. For that matter, that's what agriculture is all about once you get past the subsistence stage.

Cole writes "...these rights do not arise from the scarcity of the appropriated objects; rather, their purpose is to create scarcity, thereby generating a monopoly rent for holders of such rights. In such case, the law does not protect property over a scarce good, since the law itself created the scarcity, and this artificial scarcity generates the monopoly rents that confer value upon those rights. The big difference between patents and copyrights on the one hand, and tangible goods o

Poppy cock. The purpose of a patent is to encourage the inventor to share his invention. The return for that is the ability to prevent others from practicing that invention for the period of the patent. It does not create a shortage; the concept is utter non-sense. There is no shortage, in fact the process of creating a patent guarantees that MORE will be available by encouraging the inventor to disclose his idea in return for the patent grant. Prior to the existence of patents inventors used trade secrets

The software and business method patent fiasco is a good case study on how patents actually reduce innovation in todays markets. The technological boom of the 70's-90's was entirely made possible by the inability for people to patent their software and business method ideas. We wouldn't have Windows and MacOS if PARC had patented the GUI. Likewise for the internet. Software would have been set back at least fifty years with software patents. There wouldn't be a WWW right now, and this entire idea of the 21s

Some companies have made huge amounts of money off a single patent. Perhaps companies could offer employees the option to take some ownership stake in the patent (5%?), provided that they grant the company full rights to use the patent -- with the intent that, if the company makes a large sum of money by selling or licensing the patent, the employee will also benefit from this.

At the company where I work, most of the patents are only used defensively

I think that what offends employees is when a company pays a pittance to an employee for filing the patent, but years later make a huge windfall profit out of suing others. Partial ownership of any such profits or partial ownership in any profits made through selling the patent to someone else would take away this issue. As long as there is no cash gain from the patent, the partial owner does not gain from it.

The scheme would take a couple of other provisions: a royalty free, perpetual license granted to the employer (for us of the patent in its products), valid unless there was a change of control of the company. This would also the company to use the patent, and would allow the employee to profit should the patent become so valuable that the company was bought to get control of the patent.
It the company does successfully use the patent defensively, the employee should get some kind of bonus out of it. The patent may have just saved the company from shutting down, so why not some kind of bonus?

So, if there's a chance that an employee is going to come up with something that's worth $100M per year for the next 15 years, do you give that, or even a seemingly insignificant 1% of that, to the employee, or do you hold it for yourself?

Employees have options. They can work for someone else. They may be able to set up their own company. So, let me re-phrase your question differently: As an employer, would you prefer to keep 99% of $100M or 0%?Giving away an insignificant amount may be the smart move i

The entire idea of a "patent incentive program" seems preposterous to me. Why on earth would a company want to incentivize employees to churn out patents? Patents are usually worthless. The vast majority of patents (like 99%) have absolutely no value. Most patents will not yield enough money to recover the $5000 spent on incentivizing the employee, to say nothing about the many thousands spent on patent attorneys.

Generating valuable intellectual property is enormously more difficult, and far more valuable, than patenting things. I could come up with 10 patentable ideas off the top of my head (and I have patents from various employers).

I would also have grave concerns about any company that focused on patents. In almost every such company I've dealt with, they did not have any intellectual property worth patenting. It is an absurd presumption for any company that they will turn out discovery after discovery which warrants protection, or that they will turn out discovery after discovery if they institute an incentive to do so. Instead of worrying about patents, their concern should be having one discovery or one program that is worth anything at all. If they manage that, then they'll be ahead of 90% of startups. But if they concern themselves with protecting intellectual property rather than generating it then they're in big trouble.

However, if the company is insistent on offering incentives for patents, then it should offer incentives based upon how much money others will pay to license the intellectual property and use the patent. If the amount others are willing to pay for a given patent is "$0" (most likely) then the incentive to employees should be nothing.

In other words, if they offer a monetary incentive per patent, then the employee is paid to produce any kind of patent. The idea is absurd. Happily, the USPTO no longer accepts patents for perpetual motion machines, otherwise I as an employee would generate 20 patents just for that.

These systems are not typically run to create an incentive for employees to churn out patents. The employee has already done the invention as part of his/her work and, generally, the company already has the right to patent it without the employee's further involvement. Often, though, the right folks at the company don't know about an invention. So, the program is there to create an incentive for those who know about the inventions to tell the appropriate people in the company.

Macromedia Inc yesterday said that it won a patent infringement lawsuit it is fighting with rival Adobe Systems Inc, and has been awarded $4.9m damages by the jury, almost twice as much as Adobe was awarded in a relat

Of course, yet when an invention claims to be something entirely new,
what other comparable sources on the subject are there? Don't forget that
the difference between new and merely trivial modifications of prior art are
often very small.

That does not prevent an economic and market evaluation of the potential for the idea. Of course the accuracy of those evaluations may be poor but that is where businesses either fail or succeed in earning their pay.

Where I have worked the decision to proceed with a patent application has been made by a review committee including legal, business and scientific representatives. And the cost was borne by the business requesting the application.

Where I have worked the decision to proceed with a patent application has
been made by a review committee including legal, business and scientific
representatives. And the cost was borne by the business requesting the
application.

With the crucial point being that the scientific representatives are
trusted to explain the potential value of the invention, yes?
If so, then a positive decision to pursue a patent hinges not on the
actual value of it,
but rather on the communication skills of the scient

Nope, not at all. The value of the invention should be and usually is determined by market studies and financial analysis. Quite often there is a cost engineer involved who will translate lab results into operational cost and manufacturing estimates. Some times a professional economist will help by providing information on things like projected costs of the commodities that go into the product, and the growth potential of the market during the life of the product.

The company won't pursue patents that are of little value. You'd have a
pretty hard time convincing legal that they should waste their budget on
filing stupid patents.

Unless you're arguing for things like business method patents, the
value of the patent is in the technical innovation, surely? A new drilling
head, a new chemical process, etc.
The manufacturing costs and market projections
are certainly important to the business as well, but have no

The patent office doesn't take market projections into account when evaluating a patent, but the company sure does when it decides to apply or not.

The value of a patent is in the innovation for sure. But quantifying that value requires a market and economic analysis. This analysis has a technical component, but mostly it is profit and cost calculation, and perhaps a strategic assessment as well. That analysis is part of what a company takes in when it decides to proceed with a patent. Few if any companies w

You'd have a pretty hard time convincing legal that they should waste their budget on filing stupid patents.

Were I have worked, the legal department of a company is not involved in the patent process. That's because the legal department only has attorneys that specialize in corporate law, not patent law.

Where I have worked, the company trying to acquire a patent will bypass its legal department and will hire an outside law firm with attorneys who specialize in patent law. The patent attorneys charge som

[Companies] churn out inventions. The incentive is to get them to talk to the IP group at the company before publication. What the company decides to patent is its own business.

Thus far I have never encountered a single company that "churns out" significant inventions. Even companies that invest massively in R&D, like IBM and google, only come up with meaningful inventions once in awhile. However, the original poster did not claim that he works for google or IBM. He claimed that he works for a "one-ye

Hold a fancy formal dinner each year. So that the wife/so can get dressed up and party. Have previous years winners also attend.

The company I did some work for, does this, and it is looked forward to all year by the engineering crowd, the usual recepients. Of course, being a large fortune 500 firm, they had lots of patents and people involved.

It was like another mark of achievement, making it into the patent ball.

It is common to condition payment of filing awards on the signing of the declaration, oath, and assignment by the inventor -- the company doesn't pay until the inventor has signed.

Some also condition payment on being an employee at the time of the event -- filing the patent, issue date of the patent. That way you don't have the obligation to pay departed employees. But having said that, whoever is running the scheme should have the discretion to pay out equal amounts to ex- and non- employees when named on filed and/or issued patents. You get more interest and attention that way.

Another common approach is to pay $N per inventor for up to 4 named inventors, and for N>4 to pay each inventor $4N/k where k is the number of inventors.

Some places pay on disclosure submission. If you decide to do that, pay on *accepted* disclosures, not everything that gets thrown over the wall. While you want lots of disclosures, you don't want a lot of crap.

Decide at the outset *when* you're going to pay inventors -- some pay and present quarterly with great fanfare. My opinion is that significantly decouples the desired behaviour from reward. I much prefer having a system where things get filed, I send a note to payroll, and the $$ automagically appears in people's next paychecks. That system also minimizes the chances of people dropping through the cracks over a quarter. Yeah, have quarterly or annual beer bashes where you honor inventors as well, but don't hold up the money!

Oh, as part of that whole deal, work out with your finance types which department pays for awards -- my feeling is that it should follow who pays for filing, prosecution, issuance, and maintenance costs. If the division/group (hardware, let's say) pays for filing and prosecution, they should pay for awards. On the other hand, if filing and prosecution gets billed to G&A (corporate overhead) then awards should follow. Doing it that way puts awards costs into the entire life-cycle costs of a patent filing.

Some also condition payment on being an employee at the time of the event -- filing the patent, issue date of the patent. That way you don't have the obligation to pay departed employees.

Be careful when considering this. Given the time taken for a patent to work its way through the system, making payment conditional on continued employment can be regarded badly by employees - after all, you got the work and the patent, why are you using the

Cash patent bonus programs appear to be common. Public companies will mention them in their 10-K filings as it is often part of executive compensation (generally not limited to just executives, it just gets mentioned with executive compensation because they have to report on executive compensation.) Just google '"annual report" "patent bonus"' and '10-k "patent bonus"' and '"executive compensation" "patent bonus"'.

Hard to imagine a more anti-patent site than Slashdot. Most of your answers are likely to be "Patents are evil."

But since you asked...

Cash bonuses are nice. Equity is good too if likely to be comparable.

But don't stop at money -- make a big deal of it, make sure they get recognition among their peers. The current software patent system in the US may be... suboptimal, in terms of bad patents that get thru, but it *shouldn't* be -- in theory, getting a patent granted should be a Big Deal and something that so

I spent several years as in-house patent counsel for a hospital with a large research institute. We had a very interesting population of potential inventors - basic researchers, doctors of all stripes, and the entire range of healthcare workers.

We developed a disclosure program with a more practical twist: financial rewards were based on the successful commercialization of the technology, with a 40% share of royalties going to the inventors (to be split among them.) We also ran many non-financial recognition programs - plaques for implemented ideas, annual recognition dinners for anyone with a submitted idea, etc.

This arrangement had several advantages over the bonus-upon-filing/issuance arrangement:

We didn't get hit with a flood of bad disclosures from employees who were just trying to cash in.

Our inventors were encouraged (both literally and through the fee structure) to remain actively involved in the technology - not just the patent process, but also the marketing and licensing deals.

Some other thoughts:

Intra-organization advertising was key. The biggest reason why inventors weren't participating was simply that they didn't know our group existed. And due to employee turnover and short memory spans, the population needed frequent notices of our program, so this was just an ongoing mission.

One step up the line from education is a triage process. Be sure to have a solid team of broadly trained individuals who can review disclosures, do some market and patentability research, and thresh the wheat from the chaff.

On the whole, our inventors were excellent: creative, eager to explain and show, willing to learn about the IP process and to devote time to doing their part. Best of all, very few of them were motivated by money - most just wanted to see their inventions turned into products.

As for distribution of royalties among inventors - the easiest and fairest way to handle this is to have the inventors agree, UP FRONT (i.e., on the disclosure form), as to their respective contributions to the invention. Let them work it out among themselves, and get it documented ASAP. Waiting until royalties actually materialize is a recipe for disaster.

As a last observation - I think the reward strategy you've set out is a little unusual in two aspects: (1) The rewards are comparatively VERY large. $5k for an issued patent? Seriously? I don't think such high fees are going to promote innovation - they'll probably promote get-rich-quick thinking among the employees. (2) It's a little odd to have several inventor rewards for various stops along the patenting process. Usually, the inventor only participates in the *patent* process through filing... seems odd to reward them further based on work by your IP counsel.

Why does your company feel the need to protect its alleged intellectual property?

First of all, how many collective shoulders has your company stood upon in order to "invent" this intellectual property in the first place? How much of what went into it is actually original innovation, and how much is directly due to the collective ingenuity of the heads on all those other shoulders upon which you have been standing?

Second, exactly how long do you suppose it will be before the patent is granted? Is it possib

... is that the values of patents are in contention with one another, the idea of patents is to:

1) Incentivize people to invent2) Protect the inventor's investment/hardwork in said ideas so he (potentially/does) see some renumeration for adding value to society2) Expire patents to give that knowledge back to society so it can be freely used without royalty.

Unfortunately most patents are useless, like patenting language or air. The less a person knows about new or emerging industries the more useless patent

It's also bad, in my opinion, to incentivize something that requires brand new ideas. I would prefer to give incentive for producing more with existing products and equipment or even producing more with less.

I am planning on doing something similar with the staff I'm bringing on over the next year. The company is approximately doubling each year and our web user base is growing at about 140% per year. I want to keep the same number of servers (or less). I have the hardware budget set to double each year. An

$1K for submitting an invention disclosure that is later developed into a patent submission, paid at time of filing

$1K for significantly contributing toward a patent submission, either as a named inventor, or any other person who puts forth significant effort outside their "normal duties", also paid at time of filing

$3K to each named inventor upon patent grant, paid at time of grant, and

- cash bonus when your invention is accepted into the program- cash bonus when your application is filed- cash bonus and shiny plaque when your patent is granted

current employer:

- cash bonus and shiny plaque when your patent is granted

all employers, as far as I know

- general policy is cash payment, no royalty sharing- if you have a big-deal patent, they may work out a deal with you- you assign all rights to them- if you leave the company during the process, you don't get any more payments

Here's [uspto.gov]one of my patents so you can know I'm not making this up.

If you invent something on company time and/or using company resources, they likely own it anyway. You can either participate or just give them the idea for free, because if you try and go behind their backs and patent it on your own, you're going to be in a legal mess.

Sure, you can just invent things on your own time using your own equipment, but depending on the idea and your own personal resources, that may or may not be possible.

It's true that patent applications have to be filed for an inventor... but a company that owns an invention is allowed to file a patent application on behalf of a *hostile* inventor. A non participating inventor is not going to stop a company that wants a patent.

if it's a small company in which the employees get some say in the running of the company as some more progressive employers do, then you can offer the suggestion that all company patents be allowed to expire within a reasonable amount of time rather than being renewed indefinitely, or sold to another company who will continually renew it and prevent it from ever being released into public domain.

software patents are inherently stupid, but patents are real & innovative inventions can be beneficial to so

Can you renew a patent after it expires?
No, you can't renew a patent after it expires. However, patents may be extended by a special act of Congress and under certain circumstances certain pharmaceutical patents may be extended to make up the time lost during the Food and Drug Administration's approval process. After the pa

ah, the innocence of youth... if only the world worked the way that elementary school students are told it does.

remember a drug that came out in the late 80's called fluoxetine, better known as Prozac? Eli Lilly's patent on fluoxetine expired in August, 2001, thus marking the beginning of a flood of generic fluoxetine preparations on the U.S. market. and it's true that, since then, if you wanted to get fluoxetine for depression or anxiety, you can get cheap generics for 1 or 2 cents per pill.

Patents, and particularly software patents, are a huge drain on tech industry and a net drain on society.

The vast majority of published research on this disagrees with you.

The vast majority? Have any references? Since I've asked you to provide some I'll provides some as well. Research on the MacroEconomic Effects of Patents [ffii.org] lists about 40 studies. Some, like the first one, are about software patent specifically and it says "Software patents are serving as cheap alternatives to real innovation". Another

You should quietly smile at whatever they come up with and fail to participate in it. Patents, and particularly software patents, are a huge drain on tech industry and a net drain on society. Be part of the solution, not the problem.

This is not a helpful response. Regardless of how you personally feel about patents, you can't opt out of the game when the rules are made by Congress and the USPTO. A strong patent portfolio is a necessary legal defense in the modern business world. Without one, you're nothi

Your logical fallacy is called a false dilemma [wikipedia.org]. There are more than two ways to play the game. This would be a fine time to exercise your powers of reason to see what others you can discover.

If you don't bother to patent your own IP, you can rest assured that some patent troll will do it for you.

You can release an invention into the public domain. While patent trolls can still sue, they have to prove they came up with the invention first. On the other hand having a patent portfolio can be used as a weapon against others threat to sue. "You using our patent so unless you license this patent of yours we'll sue." A better solution to all this BS is to get rid of patents. If there are no paten

You can release an invention into the public domain. While patent trolls can still sue, they have to prove they came up with the invention first.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. If the patent troll sues, you have to countersue to get their patent declared invalid on the basis of prior art. Why should the troll have to validate his patent? The USPTO has already validated it by issuing the patent in the first place. It's up to you to overturn that validation in court. Don't think that making your

"We're not violating your patent. This is an implementation of our own patent." Then the shoe is on the other foot, and the patent troll must invalidate your patent.

A patent does not give you the right to implement an invention. A patent only gives you the right to exclude others from using your invention. If the invention in one patent covers an improvement over the invention of another patent, neither patent holder can utilize the invention without a license from the other. In this situation there is s

This is a very lucrative program for those who participate ($7,000 per patent grant) - not participating simply means that the $7,000 will be going to other employees - if this company is anything like those I have experience with, there is a (stupid, arbitrary) fixed number of patents they will file each quarter.

At least by participating, you can attempt to craft patents of true value, instead of crap that looks good to the CEO.

I disagree that patents are a net drain on society - it's the lawyers that are

I've been employed in 3 companies that have had varying patent incentive programs over the years. During that time I applied for and was granted 38 patents, in the US and in other nations. None of these were software or business process patents.

The various incentives amounted to an attaboy on the low end up to a hundred shares of stock (worth about $100 per share) per granted patent.

The money was nice, and in some cases there was a reception or dinner involved with a famous speaker which was generally fun. Other times there were plaques, or little trophies inscribed with "Excelsior!" or some such.

Did any of it affect my behavior, or make it more likely I would try to patent something? Not really. Did any of it materially affect my company's business? A little, because it made them feel more comfortable about the security of entering a certain area of business. But none of it really provided the company with a monopoly - there were always alternate technologies that could be used to get the same result, but maybe not as efficiently or cleanly.

If I was going to do it I'd choose the recognition ceremony / famous speaker approach. It meant more to me that the senior management of the company took some time out of their schedule and spent it with the R&D people than than the money or stock did. And think this kind of approach is less likely to distort the inventor's decisions as to what is worth pursuing and what is not. And besides meeting a real live astronaut or Nobel Laureate is way cool.

I'm surprised you didn't talk to a lawyer as you are potentially eligible to a percentage of the profits your patents generated. Contrary to popular belief, companies does not automatically take ownership of the patents their employees file.

Why does asking this question on/. seem a lot like walking into a biker bar wearing a feather boa and asking for a virgin Tom Collins?

Son, you might be in the wrong bar...

Considering who has the power in the world, it's more like the other way around -- a biker in full leathers walking into a foofy juice bar asking for a straight Jack Daniels. He still ain't going to get it, but it isn't him in physical danger.

Anyway, if you're a startup, you'd better not make it all equity; your employees know there's a

Have you ever actually gone thru a patent application process? All of the above are things that are weeded out very early in the process (assuming you have patent attorneys who have any experience whatsoever). It's not the engineer's job to try to exclude things -- in fact, a good patent attorney will try to include as many things as possible in order to have the broadest reach for the resulting patent.

As for "quality" of patents -- well, they aren't rated like bonds, either they are granted or they aren't.

three patents granted... one ended up winning my company a $4 million settlement in a patent violation lawsuit. does that count?:-)

I never said anything about frivolous claims. Of course you don't want your patent to include "weak, questionable, or unnecessary" claims... but you do want it to be as broad as possible within the primary scope of the patentable claim.

"Without patents large vested interests would simply take all the inventions startup companies produce for their and only their profit."

The patent system does not work for start-ups. Patenting makes only sense when you can build up a portfolio. You cannot enforce a patent against a large player because in our world of patent madness the larger player has at least x trivial patents you infringe. Remains the patent troll. To become a patent troll you have to be able to finance 400k lawsuits which may last sev

This still depends to a large extent on which space you are playing in. If you are trying to be a startup in a field of multi-billion dollar players, sure, you'll lose the patent war, regardless of whether or not you choose to play.

On the other hand, if you are entering a field that represents a small current market with a scattering of small players, the patent could be all it takes to get you some breathing room. In round numbers, it enables a $10M capitalized startup to compete in a field populated by

I've always viewed software like a book and most people I know do the same. You don't patent a book - you publish it. And get rights that way. The software industry screwed the pooch big time trying to get its products treated like "inventions".

This is a stupid analogy. Yeah, you don't patent books, you copyright them. However you do patent a printing press.

Similarly, if you write something in Microsoft word, and you so desire, you copyright it. However MS Word itself ought to be patented, as it amounts